Empathy in Virtual Reality

Ivana Coleman
Emblematic Group

When people put on our goggles, they are fully transported to another world. There is a solid academic, neuro-scientific grounding for the notion of "presence"--of your mind tricking your body into believing that you're somewhere else--and it's that presence that is the defining element of our work, and of all good VR. Because you feel like you're really there, your emotional response is much more intense than when, say, you see something terrible reported on the nightly news. Virtual Reality’s ability to put you on scene in a moment evokes empathy.


Back to Mini-Workshop: Diasporas Lab Day